Picking up the pieces

Locals
have vowed to rebuild a memorial kitchen which burnt down with Yass High
School’s industrial arts, and home sciences building at the weekend.

The
cost of the fire is tipped to reach $5 million, with the destruction of the
hospitality kitchen, woodworking, textiles and metalworking rooms, a computer
lab with 20 computers, and another classroom.

Many
students lost projects they had been working on, and teachers lost years of
teaching resources.

Police
said it was too early to determine if the fire was deliberately lit.

It is
the second fire at the school in as many years, with a blaze in the school’s
canteen last year. It too is still under investigation.

Police
did not yet know if the fires were linked.

They
were quick however to quash unconfirmed reports within the community that there
had been further fires in other areas of the school grounds, including one at the
netball court canteen/toilet block. Fire brigade and education department
officials also confirmed the reports were false.

The
school remains without power and classes were moved to Berinba and Yass public
schools and the Baptist Hall until at least tomorrow.

Police
said they were on a routine patrol on Saturday when they came across the
burning building at about 2.24am and alerted fire fighters.

Captain
Allan Carey said when he arrived the building was well alight with flames
coming from the roof.

He
said it appeared to have started in the northern section of the building, near
a power box. The fire then spread throughout the centre within 10 minutes of
the initial alert.

Fire
crews from Yass, Boorowa, Goulburn and the Rural Fire Service worked to save a
demountable building behind the centre and the toilets and canteen block to the
side of it.

“By
the time we got here the whole building was on fire, it burnt very quickly,”
Captain Carey said.

“When
I saw the smoke coming from the highway, I knew it was going to be a big one.”

He
said there was a lot of combustible equipment housed inside the building that
would have accelerated the fire.

“Our
main objective was to stop it spreading to other parts of the school.”

An
excavator had to be called in to turn over large amounts of smoldering debris
to help extinguish the fire. It was then used to demolish unstable walls of the
burnt out building.

Fire
fighters had the blaze under control by 3.30am and continued to mop up well
past 11.30am.